What Do You Want?
by BabyKay47
Summary: Danny has to address the harsh things he said to her in "Danny Castellano Is My Gynecologist."


They do it like rabbits because after his misguided attempt to save them both from heartache by breaking up with her—and causing further heartache—they don't want to waste any more time on doubts and insecurities. He loves her and she loves him, and he wants, needs, and has to have her.

As doctors, the question of birth control comes up and she tells him that she had to stop taking it because of mood swings and weight gain, and that because at the time she had been single, she hadn't seen a need to continue. Her period was always regular, and all of those other benefits of the pill such as clear skin and lightened flow never applied to her, so it was just less hassle without it, and they decide to just use condoms. After the first time they have sex, though, she schedules an appointment with her OB/GYN for a consultation about trying another type of birth control, but as usual keeps pushing it off because where is she going to find the time to go to the doctor between all the sex she's having? She jokes that Danny could be her doctor, but her "exam" turns into foreplay and Jeremy is forced to kick them out of the office for unprofessional conduct, and they both have to sign HR forms saying they will not be each other's doctors for any reasons. So they agree to just keep using condoms for the time being.

One evening they get home so horny for each other that they barely make it to the bedroom. All of the condoms that are usually in the bedside table are gone, so Mindy scrounges around for one that she had hidden in her closet. "Found it!" she yells triumphantly as Danny tackles her playfully around the waist and carries her back to bed where he promptly throws her down and then follows after so he can have his way with her.

When they are both lying spent in a haze of satisfaction, Danny pulls away and yells, "Fuck it!" when he sees that that his condom has ripped.

Mindy is startled out of the happy daze she feels post coitus by his yelled expletive. "What is it?"

Danny looks at her regretfully. "The condom broke."

Mindy sits up in shock. "What do you mean, 'the condom broke?' There's like a one in a billion chance that that will happen. Did you even put it on right?"

"Yes, I put it on right!" Danny explains, exasperated.

"Then this shouldn't have happened. In all the times that I've used a condom, this has never happened before."

"It's never happened to me before either!"

"Well, that's good to know, I guess. What should we do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"Well, we're both clean and STD free, so we don't have to worry about that. The only thing we have to worry about is pregnancy."

"And we're both OB/GYNs, so there's no need to panic." He tries to smile reassuringly, but inside he is panicking, just a bit. This was too soon for them. They had only been going out for a couple of weeks and were still in the honeymoon phase. And even though he feels without a shadow of a doubt that he wants to be with her forever, and that if she were pregnant he would be there 100% for her and the baby, he is afraid that she will think he is crazy for wanting it all now.

"Right," Mindy responds evenly, smoothing out the worry lines in his brow with her hand. "We both know that the chance of getting pregnant depends on a lot of factors."

"Yes, but we both know that all it takes is one time."

Mindy feels surprisingly calm as she reaches for her phone on the nightstand. "Let me just take a look. If I've already ovulated, then we have nothing to worry about." She opens the period app that Morgan had installed for her. She was usually pretty good about putting in the dates of her period start and end, but she sometimes wondered if Morgan was going into her phone and updating it whenever she forgot. Even though she had been off birth control for a couple of months, she was usually pretty regular and her app did a good job of warning her when her period was about to start. According to her calendar, there are 8 days left until her next period, which put her right in the middle of her "fertile window."

"Crap," she says. And Danny looks at her even more worried than before.

"What is it?"

"It's nothing. It's just that I might be ovulating. But we can't rely on this app, it just gives me an estimate of when I _might_ be ovulating. And I haven't really tried to find out when I would be ovulating exactly, because I haven't really ever tried to get pregnant before."

"Oh, boy," Danny says, running his hand through his hair distractedly. "Okay, in that case we should think about emergency contraceptives like the morning after pill."

"Is that what you want me to do?" Mindy asks.

Danny opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. He knows that he should just tell her to do it because it would be better for her not to get pregnant. But if he is honest with himself, he doesn't want her to do it. The thought of her being pregnant with his baby fills him with panic, about whether or not he would be a good dad, and if it would be a good thing for their relationship, but it also makes him feel really, really happy. He knows that she would make a wonderful mother, and there is also a part of him that wants that physical reminder of their relationship that would always tie them together no matter what happens. And if he is really honest with himself, he would realize that he had been thinking about having a family with her for a long time. In all of his lust-induced fantasies he has always imagined coming inside her and filling her up with his seed. And he has imagined making love to her with her belly round and taut with his child. He is beginning to feel the stirrings of arousal just thinking about it now.

So, staring her deep in the eyes and swallowing past the lump that had formed in his throat, he shakes his head. "What if you didn't take the morning after pill?"

The question hangs between them like a lightning bolt, shedding light on what his real feelings were without saying them. He was basically telling her that he wanted to take that risk, that if somehow his little swimmers managed to fertilize her egg, he wanted her to have a baby. His baby.

"Really?" Mindy asks in amazement. "Are you sure this is what you want?"

"Well, I know there's only a small chance that I got you pregnant, but if I did, would it be so bad? We're in love, we both want to have a family, and even though it's really soon in our relationship, I can't imagine a time where we will feel completely ready for it. So if it happens, it happens, and we go forward from there."

"Wow, Danny, that's the sweetest thing I've ever heard. I absolutely do want to have a baby with you, and even though I hadn't imagined it being so soon, why not now? I love you, and we can handle this."

Danny smiles in relief and then lunges forward to kiss her.

* * *

The next week was torture. Every morning Mindy woke up wondering if this would be the day she would get her period. And unfortunately, they both had a slew of deliveries at odd times, so they didn't get a chance to see each other except for meals they managed to have together whenever their breaks lined up. And by tacit unspoken agreement they hadn't had sex again. Perhaps they were ready for the possibility of a baby, but were they ready to actually…try?

Danny was already looking forward to the time when he could come inside her without protection. He had always been able to get off with a condom on, but there was nothing like the feeling of being inside a woman without it. When he'd been married to Christina she had been on birth control so using a condom had been unnecessary. And since her he'd had a couple of longer term relationships with women he felt comfortable enough to go bareback with. But he had never felt like this before. If women could be said to have a biological clock ticking, he supposed he was experiencing the male equivalent. The more he thought about it, and it had been on his mind a lot ever since that night the condom broke, the more he realized he wanted a child. But he didn't want to pressure Mindy into doing anything she wasn't ready for. And he didn't want to ever put her in the position of asking him to put a condom on. It made him feel uncomfortable whenever a woman asked him to put one on, as if she didn't expect him to do it on his own, which he supposed for a lot of men was true. But he wasn't other men and he always cared enough not only to protect himself, but the woman he was having sex with.

In fact it had become so second nature to him that as soon as he felt that there was a chance that things were about to get more intimate with a woman, he would break out a condom. And in his experience no woman had ever told him, "Hey buddy, slow down. What kind of woman do you think I am?" but instead had reacted with relief and often enthusiasm because the pressure was off of them. He had heard it again and again from his patients, how they had felt embarrassed to ask their partners to use protection, or in worse cases when their requests had been ignored, and it made him angry at his sex for their belief that that kind of behavior was acceptable. So he always, always put one on.

That was also why in the game of gynecological health chicken he had played with Mindy, he had honestly been able to tell her that he had never imagined that women would go to such strange lengths to hide the fact that they had condoms. There had been a few women who had beat him to the punch of getting out a condom, but he had never reacted by thinking that they were slutty for wanting to protect themselves.

So he had decided that until she got her period, or didn't, be that as it may, he wouldn't have sex with her again because he would rather go without sex than have a discussion with her about having unprotected sex that she might not be ready for. And as it turned out, they were both too busy to even try.

Then almost seven days to the date later, Danny got a tearful phone call.

"I got my period," Mindy said simply as soon as he answered.

Danny couldn't hide his disappointment and responded without even thinking about how his words might sound. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said honestly.

"Me too."

"Really?" Danny asked in surprise.

"Uh huh."

"Listen, I have one last appoint this afternoon, but how about after that I meet you in the lounge?"

"Okay."

"I'll text you when I'm done, and we'll talk then."

"Okay."

It was odd hearing her so monosyllabic rather than upbeat and bubbly, that his heart couldn't help but go out to her. "Min?"

"Yes, Danny?"

"I love you, and everything is going to work out for the best."

"I love you, too, Danny." She sighed heavily as if she were trying to hold back tears, but before he could say anything she hung up.

Mindy's sadness stayed on his mind all the rest of the afternoon and he couldn't wait until he could see her again. In fact he kept glancing at the clock so much during his consultation that his patient asked him if he had something more important to do, for which he had apologized profusely, and managed to give her his undivided attention for the remainder of her appointment. But as soon as he had escorted her to the elevator and the doors had chimed shut, he had dashed off to the hospital.

Mindy was there sitting on the lounge sofa staring blankly at the television screen looking as sad and forlorn as he had ever seen her.

"Hey," he said quietly, sitting next to her on the couch. "How are you feeling?"

"Cramped and bloated."

He reached down to put a hand on her stomach. "Would you like me to massage you, or get you a heated pad?"

"I'll be all right. I just took something, and it hasn't kicked in yet. But thanks for offering."

"You're welcome," he said pulling her to his side so he could cuddle her on the couch. "You know, when I asked how you were, I didn't mean just physically."

Mindy turned to look at him, her dark eyes filled with unshed tears. "I know. But how can I tell you what I feel when it doesn't even make sense. We're not ready for a baby. We've just gotten back together. We're not married. We're not even engaged. But when I thought I might be pregnant, even though I knew there was only the faintest possibility, I realized that I really, really want it. I keep going back to what you said to me when I asked you to be my gynecologist—I'm thirty-four. I'm not getting any younger, my eggs aren't getting any younger, and if I want to have children—and I really, really do—it's better for me to get started sooner, rather than later. And if I'm going to have anyone be the father of my children, there's no one else I'd rather have than you. You are my best friend, and I really, really want to have your adorable sweaty chubby children. But that's crazy, isn't it? I shouldn't be telling you this, or you might go running for the hills."

Mindy was crying fully now, and Danny sighed, his chest tightening with regret. "First of all, I should never have said those things to you. I'm a doctor, and I would never have told a patient those things in that way. It was completely unprofessional as a doctor, and completely insensitive as a friend. And I apologize for it."

"But you weren't saying anything that wasn't true," Mindy sniffed. Danny wiped away her tears with his thumbs. She tried to look away, but he kept her still with his hands, and tilted her head up so that he was looking her directly in the eyes.

"I was absolutely and completely wrong about _everything_. Let's do the math on how our relationship is going to play out," Danny said, echoing his words from that day long ago. "We have already been on hundreds of dates. I know you better than I have known anyone else in my entire life, and you know me even better than I know myself. So when I ask you to marry me in one or two months—tops," Mindy looked up at him, her mouth gaping open a little in surprise, but Danny continued, "you'll have no doubt in your mind that we are ready for the next step. We move in together at three months, and it only takes so long because we can't agree on where to move, until we find the perfect apartment in Manhattan just when we thought we'd never find anything. We get married at six months because you have to invite all your extended family in India, and I invite my father, and we want to give them enough time to make arrangements. Six months still isn't a lot of time, but it's enough for your favorite Aunt Gita to make it along with a slew of cousins as well as all my family from Staten Island, and everybody from the office, and we don't want to wait any longer. At this point you're afraid that if you wait any longer you won't be able to fit in your dress anymore because you're just beginning to show." Mindy gasped. Danny just grinned. "You see after we had a pregnancy scare, we both realized that we both really want to have a family, and when you realize you want to start a family, you try to start a family as soon as possible."

Mindy smiled through her tears. "Danny, did you just paraphrase a quote from 'When Harry Met Sally?'"

Danny smiled back, "Yeah, I guess I did."

"And did you mean all those things you said?"

"Absolutely."

"Oh, Danny," she let out breathlessly.

"And I'm really sorry that I ever gave you a reason to doubt me. I'm in this for the long haul. Marriage, babies, everything. Don't ever think that anything you want could ever scare me away. I'm done running. And I just realized that everything you could ever want is everything I want to give you. So what do you say? Do you want to make a baby with me?"

Mindy nodded, and Danny kissed her, both overwhelmed and excited. They were going to start a family, and it was going to be a lot of fun doing it.

* * *

**A/N: This is my first foray into TMP fandom. I have been so inspired by all the wonderful fics for Mindy/Danny that I just had to write one of my own. I hope this helps us make it through the rest of the hiatus until the season premiere in September. Please let me know what you think.**


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